Cheney: Terrorism Kills Palestinian Hopes

WASHINGTON — Arriving in Israel as the Bush administration's envoy to the peace process, Vice President Cheney said a condition for a "long overdue" Palestinian state would be its intolerance of terror.

"A difficult but immutable truth must continue to be told: terror and rockets do not merely kill innocent civilians, they also kill legitimate hopes and aspirations of the Palestinian people," Mr. Cheney said while standing next to President Abbas at Ramallah.

Those words approximate the criticism of Mayor Giuliani in an article last fall in Foreign Affairs. The former mayor in his presidential bid promised that his administration would not support a Palestinian state if it was a haven for terrorists.

Mr. Cheney urged on the "advocates of peace and reconciliation."

In private, Mr. Cheney is reported by the Israeli press to have discussed Iran with the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, though in his appearances over the weekend he did not discuss the country, whose current president has threatened to wipe Israel off the map. The Washington Post reported yesterday that Mr. Abbas urged Mr. Cheney to support an Egyptian-brokered cease fire process between Hamas and Israel. While Mr. Abbas yesterday condemned the rocket attacks on Israel, in the last three weeks he has also said his party may consider armed resistance if its goals are not met at the negotiations table.

Reporting from Gaza yesterday, the Ma'an news service said Fatah and Hamas signed a framework understanding that may lead to a unity government. The news was announced by Fatah's spokesman in the Palestinian legislative council, Azzam Al-Ahmad, and a Hamas leader, Mousa Abu Marzouq.

In January 2006, Hamas won a majority of seats in the council, leading to a political crisis within the Palestinian Authority. America and Israel announced that no Palestinian Authority that included Hamas, an organization funded by Iran and committed to Israel's destruction, would receive aid. America began funding and training new counterterrorism forces loyal to Mr. Abbas, ostensibly for the purpose of countering Hamas in Gaza. In June of last year, Hamas routed the Fatah-led preventive security forces that remained in Gaza and effectively took over the strip. The coup in Gaza led Mr. Abbas to dissolve the government. In November, Mr. Abbas came to a conference in Annapolis, Md., to
begin a peace process that excluded Hamas.

"I did not think this was breathtaking in any manner," the director for the Center for Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institute, Meyrav Wurmser, said. "Vice President Cheney showed strong commitment to the state of Israel and its security. But he is there pushing the peace process. That is my impression. What we don't know is what was said and done behind the scenes, where the significant stuff is about Iran."